NBC has taken their Ann Curry ostracization to whole new level by unceremoniously banishing the much-maligned morning show anchor to Today's Phantom Zone of recorded video. Curry, according to Page Six, will no longer be allowed to appear on live TV, perhaps out of a general fear among Today producers that she'll strangle Matt Lauer on-air, forcing America to watch Lauer's final, gasping breath fog up Camera 2.

Curry, whose contentious relationship with NBC and Lauer has been a well-documented bit of gossip on the morning show circuit, has thus far been filing reports for NBC News programs like Rock Center with Brian Williams, of the cool dad Williamses. Though she maintains, according to an unnamed source, "great relationships" with celebrities, her first return to live TV on Today turned cringingly awkward when she shrugged off Matt Lauer's banal attempts at small talk.

Ann Curry is not an idiot, she just looks like one on TV. Because Ann Curry is an accomplished…
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Since one of Curry's biggest gripes is that she wants to do more hard news and less frittata-making for America, Today isn't a great venue for her. The Atlantic Wire's Connor Simpson, picking up a thread casually dropped by the Post, thinks that Curry's CNN contact Jeff Zucker (as in, former NBC chief Jeff Zucker) might have a chance of helping her extricate herself from the floundering NBC ocean liner so that she can join one of the newest "hard news" teams of super friends. That would definitely go a long way towards ensuring that Matt Lauer can leer at America uninhibited for the foreseeable future.